Ortal Ben Dayan (Hebrew: אורטל בן דיין‎; born July 12, 1981) is an Israeli media personality, sociologist, Mizrahi feminist activist, blogger, and fashion and jewelry designer.

During her compulsory military service, Ben Dayan was a soldier-teacher, beginning her social activism by working with youth groups from the geographic periphery of Israel.

[4] Ben Dayan has been outspoken on multiple issues in the Israeli public eye – often receiving scathing responses from both right and left.

These include anti-homophobia campaigns that replace anti-gay stereotypes with anti-woman and anti-Mizrahi ones;[5] she published a photo of herself holding a book on Israeli art, but only those pages dealing with Mizrahi artists (over 50% of the Jewish population of Israel) – which was 6 out of 200 – creating a dramatic effect of the thin group of pages held, while the heavy bulk of the book is pulled down by gravity;[6] she has been outspoken about the campaign to exonerate Roman Zadorov of the murder of Tair Rada, calling out the gendered and ethnic aspects of trying to accuse her 13-year-old friends of the murder to set him free;[7] and she drew especially sharp criticism from "her own camp" when she published an article stating that African refugees would not be sent to their deaths if the government deportation plan would be implemented.

[8] After Ben Dayan opened a vintage fashion store in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Neve Sha'anan in 2013, she was exposed to the issue of the personal security of women in the area.

[19] In 2011, she co-authored with activist Assaf Kintzer the blog "Hatzatetet" (the "Quotery")[20] an archival site of racist and sexist quotes by Israeli leaders of the founding generation and famous Zionist thinkers.

[21] In the years 2012–2013, she also ran the personal political blog "An Axe to Grind", in which she wrote extensively on some of the explosive issues that took place on Facebook, including the storm surrounding the claim that the work of post-Soviet artist Zoya Cherkassky's portrayal of Mizrahim is racist,[22] as well as criticism of leading left wing Ashkenazi journalists and activists, such as Yossi Gurevitch, Amir Shibi, and Dror Feuer.

The next day, Judge Shamai Becker of the Magistrate's Court determined that she should rightly be released, but ruled that "purely for the sake of politeness" Ben Dayan should identify herself.

[28] A Lehava activist named Avishai Bar Yishai approached her and asked if she would also like to slap him, noting that he was older and bigger than the young man.

Following these complaints, and the process that she initiated against Aran, the university was forced to deal with the issue of relations between faculty and students, a subject for which there had been until then no clear official policy.

In addition, as part of the agreement, the university officially recognized Ben Dayan's claims as factual,[37] and stated that following the proceedings initiated by Ben Dayan, the university would introduce "regulatory changes in respect to what is permitted and prohibited regarding relationship between students and faculty, in which academic authority is involved", and undertook to apply "institutional measures to improve the process of handling complaints by students, to prevent harm to the complainants' status, and to ensure for them a supportive learning environment.

Consequently, Ben Dayan filed a lawsuit against Linur, the Army Radio and the Israel Ministry of Defense for defamation, based on the offensive characterizations of her, as well as the accusations that Aran was married at the time of their relationship, which was untrue.

The parties reached a settlement agreement, according to which the Army Radio issued an apology to Ben Dayan with no admission of guilt, and paid her compensation in the sum of 38,000 Shekels (approximately US$10,000).

Linur apologized in person, and then encouraged the public to vote for Ben Dayan while she competed on the "Big Brother" reality television series.

[39] In September 2013, Ben Dayan wrote a Facebook post addressed to Amir Hetsroni, a controversial media and academic figure.

Ben Dayan's post intimated the Hetroni pays for sex services in the brothels of South Tel Aviv, where she had seen him late at night.

On the program, Ben Dayan and fellow resident Eldad Gal-Ed, an ideological settler, developed a special tension, partly because of their disparate political views.

Gal-Ed's friend Martine Solel, nicknamed Ben Dayan "Shontal", a derogatory ethnic poke at her first name "Ortal", which is most commonly adopted by Israelis of Moroccan extraction.

"[50] [43] Ben Dayan responded to the accusations against her by saying to Big Brother on the air:You know, we do not live in an egalitarian world between men and women ... What I did could be seen as 'corrective harassment.'

In 2013, Ben Dayan opened a vintage fashion store in South Tel Aviv, from which she also sold clothing of her own design, such as galabiyas.

The connection is expressed, for example, by the name she chose for her vintage shop and its character, as can be seen in the clothing and jewelry she designs – which she describes as related to her identity as a Mizrahi from the geographical periphery.

I understood then that excellence in academic pursuits, being top-rated, is something that is identified with the AE club (Ashkenazi Elite), and I simply am not a member of that club.The ethno-cultural context is also expressed in her designs themselves, which contain cultural elements, without an imitating folkloristic aesthetics.

[56] Ben Dayan became a vegan after participating in the Big Brother television series in 2014 alongside major Israeli animal rights activist Tal Gilboa.